The Best Gift
by callmecirce
Summary: Ladybug has had a hard time deciding on the best gift for her partner, but she thinks that she's finally found a winner.


Ladybug was nervous.

She'd made plans with Chat Noir to meet up that night to exchange Christmas gifts, and she was really quite excited about that, but she was anxious about how he'd like his gifts. Or, more specifically, she was anxious about one of his gifts.

She arrived to their meeting spot early because she'd been too wound up to wait at home. Now, here in the secluded rooftop garden of an empty house, she was stuck waiting with nothing but her own thoughts to distract her. She groaned and sank to the bench in the center of the garden, hanging her head over the back to look up at the sky. She could always just…not go through with it, right?

"Good evening, my lady."

Ladybug bolted upright. "Chat!"

"Why the groan?" Chat placed a brightly colored gift bag on the ground and sat next to her on the bench. "It's present time!"

"Oh, nothing. Just the holiday stress getting to me." She turned away from him and reached into the bag she'd left next to the bench on her side. When she turned back to him, she held out a festively wrapped box with a big green bow on it. "Merry Christmas, Chaton!"

"Ooh, for me?" Chat took it with a grin, then reached into his own bag and produced not one, not two, but three wrapped boxes, stacked atop one another like a pyramid and tied together with a red satin ribbon. "These are for you."

"Oh my God, Chat, three? That's too much! I thought we agreed not to go overboard!"

"Did we?" Chat asked, twisting his mouth thoughtfully as he tapped his chin. "Because I don't remember having any such conversation."

"Chat!"

"Stop fussing and open them!"

"Fine," she gave in with a fond smile, "but this had better be 3 parts of the same thing." She tugged on the tails of the bow atop the presents, and they slid free easily. When it was loose, she used one hand to steady the stack of gifts and draped the ribbon around Chat's shoulders with the other. "Do try not to tangle yourself up in that, Chaton."

He rolled his eyes at her jibe, but was so excited that he was practically vibrating in his seat and he let it pass without a rejoinder. "Open the top one first!"

"Okay," she said, pulling the tape carefully away from the paper.

He whimpered. "You're going slow on purr-pose!"

"Maybe," she allowed, grinning.

"Here, I'll help you!" He hooked his claws in the paper and yanked, ripping it open so forcefully that a strip of the paper came off in his hand. "Oops," he said unrepentantly. "My hand slipped."

Ladybug giggled; his excitement was infectious. She opened the box to find a small, enameled ladybug charm hanging from a delicate silver chain. "Oh! It's beautiful!" She held it closer to her face, to look at it more closely, and realized with a start that the spots were not done in black enamel, as she'd thought, but with tiny faceted black crystals.

"Do you like it?" he asked anxiously.

She nodded, clutching the box to her chest. "The only thing I might have liked better, Chaton, was a kitty charm."

His eyes widened and he flushed with pleasure. "Well, there's always your birthday."

"That's not what I meant and you know it," she said. "Now, open yours!"

"But you still have—"

"Nope, we're taking turns. Open it!"

Chat Noir pretended to pout for a moment, then brightened as he inspected his gift. "What did my lady get for me?" he mused aloud, shaking it.

"You're lucky it's not fragile."

"If it survived the yo-yo ride over here, it'll survive a bit of investigative shaking, Bugaboo." He shook it again, and frowned. "It did make that sound before, right?" She giggled again, as she knew he'd intended, and he began tearing the paper away to reveal the utilitarian shipping box beneath. "Interesting..." He used a claw to split the tape holding it closed, opened the flaps, and pushed aside the tissue paper to peer inside the box. "What is this?"

"Take it out and see!"

He reached in and carefully slid his fingers down into the shipping box to grasp the slightly smaller box nestled within. On the top of the box was a picture of the two of them with their faces pressed close together and smiling hugely. He shook the box again, and looked at her questioningly. "Is this…a puzzle?"

"It is," she confirmed, feeling silly now that he'd opened it. "I know I normally make your gift, but I couldn't think of anything to make that I haven't already made for you—"

He halted the flow of her words with a finger over her mouth. "It's perfect, Ladybug. Thank you."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," he laughed, then picked up the second gift from her lap and pushed it at her. "Now, you get to open another one!"

"Alright, alright!" She skipped over making a show of this one, and instead tore into it the same way Chat Noir had done. This box was incredibly light, and she found that it contained only an envelope. "A Christmas card?"

He smiled enigmatically. "Open it and find out."

Curious now, Ladybug opened the envelope and pulled out two tickets to…the insanely exclusive Gabriel Winter Fashion Show? "Oh my god, Chat, how did you—these are—" She shoved the envelope at him as if the tickets within might bite her. "I can't accept these!"

Chat sat on his hands and shook his head. "You can! This wily cat has his ways, and I want you to have them."

"Chaaaat!"

"No refunds, no exchanges! Now, I do believe you have another gift to open."

Ladybug stared at him mutinously, but he met her glare placidly. "You're ridiculous."

"Obviously. Next gift."

She hesitated, her heart pounding with renewed anxiety. Did she really want to give him his second gift? His real gift? It wasn't too late, she could just pretend… But, no. She and Tikki had talked it over, and decided together. She wasn't going to back down now. She pulled the second, much smaller box from the bag and handed it to him.

"Actually, Chaton, I have another gift for you."

"Oh," he said, brightening with both surprise and pleasure. "My lady, you spoil me."

"Hello, pot. I'm the kettle."

Chat snickered, and opened the gift as eagerly as he'd opened the last. When he removed the lid from the box, however, his expression blanked. "Ladybug?" He lifted the hand-stitched red and black mask from the box and held it reverently in his hands. "What is this?"

Ladybug gulped. No going back now.

"It's actually just a symbol. Of your real gift." He looked up at her, his eyes shining with intense emotion.

"My lady?"

"I was wracking my brain, trying to figure out what I could possibly give you for Christmas that could show you how important you are to me. How much you've come to mean to me. And I realized, there was actually only one thing that could possibly come close: myself. My identity."

Chat Noir stared in open mouthed shock at his partner, trying to process what her words meant, but his brain had shut down. Her gift had taken him completely by surprise, rendering him speechless. His fingers curled around the familiar mask in his hand.

"You—" Ladybug broke off, swallowed thickly, and began again. "You can say no, if you'd rather not know. But I wanted—no, I needed you to know that I am willing to share it with you, to be your friend out of the mask as well as in it."

He'd begun shaking his head before she even finished speaking, and now, he dropped the mask back into its box so that his hands would be free to take hers. "No, it's not that at all. I'm just, in shock, I think." He stroked his thumbs over her hands, still struggling to make sense of his tumultuous thoughts. "I'd given up on you ever wanting to share your identity. You've protected it so fiercely, you know?"

Ladybug nodded, smiling ruefully. "I know. And there's still a risk. But it's one I'm willing to take."

Chat Noir studied her expression, searching for fear or doubt or regret. He found a touch of anxiety, but she was resolute. His lips curled. "So am I," he whispered.

At that, she smiled beatifically. "Spots off," she whispered back, shocking him again. She was doing it now?

He felt the familiar tingle of magic, and watched as Ladybug disappeared in a wash of pink light. Marinette—his Marinette—sat in her place.

He gaped, utterly poleaxed for the third time in as many minutes.

"Hi," she said, waving shyly.

He continued to stare, his eyes roving over her beloved face, trying to memorize just how she looked in that moment: smiling, luminous, limned in moonlight.

"I love you," he breathed, because really, it was the only thing he could say.

Her eyes blew wide and he started, realizing that his mouth has come back online before his brain, and that he'd probably just messed things up spectacularly. He didn't regret it, though. It was the bald truth. He loved her as Ladybug and he loved her as Marinette and why he hadn't recognized that the two were really just one wonderful, intoxicatingly beautiful young woman was completely beyond him.

"Chat?"

"I love you," he said again, more strongly this time, and he cupped her cheeks in his hands. "I love you, and all I want in this whole world is to kiss you right now."

Marinette nodded, already swaying closer to him with her lips parted in invitation. He lowered his mouth to hers slowly, his eyes on hers until the very last moment. The first brush of their lips sent a frisson of sensation rippling over his body, and he angled his head to deepen the kiss. At the first tentative touch of her tongue to his lip, he groaned and swept his tongue into her mouth.

As if galvanized by his invasion of her mouth, she echoed his groan and clambered into his lap to press herself as close to him as possible. Her arms went around his neck and his arms went around her body and they lost themselves to the moment, uncaring of the passage of time.

Chat Noir did not come back to himself until she shivered in his arms, and it finally registered that she was shivering with cold.

He broke their kiss and rested his forehead on hers, panting.

"Why did you stop?" she asked, sounding almost pouty.

"You're freezing." He rubbed his hands along her arms, and then squeezed them gently. "You're going to turn into a bugcicle."

She laughed, conceding the point. "Tikki?"

Her kwami floated up from the bag, smiling brightly. "Ready to go, Marinette."

"Spots on then, please."

There was another flash of pink, and then she was Ladybug once more. Chat blinked, taking in the sight of her powerful, red-clad thighs bracketing his, and laughed quietly.

"What?"

He shook his head wonderingly. "You, and me, like this. I'd pretty much given up on this as well."

"Oh," she giggled. "I hadn't."

Her words warmed him in a way that he hadn't known he needed. "Are you warm enough now, or should we move this somewhere warmer?"

She hesitated, then deflated. "Still cold, but I hate to leave this place. It's so lovely here."

"We can come back when it's warmer," he pointed out, tapping her legs to indicate that she should get off of him. "Besides, I'd like to show you who I am as well, and I am definitely not dressed for this weather."

"Oh!" Her eyes widened and she nodded. "My place, then?"

"Sure. Lead on, Princess."

Marinette dismissed her transformation, tingling with more than just magic as she held Chat's eyes.

"It's going to take me a while to get used to that."

"That's alright," she giggled. "I'm sure it will be the same for me."

At the reminder, Chat gulped and rubbed a nervous hand over the back of his head. "Are you ready?" he asked.

"I am," Marinette confirmed, taking his hand, "but are you? I had time to prepare, to psych myself up for it, and I still almost chickened out."

Chat's anxious look melted into a devil-may-care smirk. "Was that a challenge, my lady? Because you know that this Chat would never 'chicken out'."

"Chaaat!" She rolled her eyes. "I'm being serious."

"So am I. Claws in, Plagg."

Marinette stepped back with a gasp, and watched the green light travel up his body, taking the familiar black suit and leaving…a pair of flannel pajama bottoms?

"Ohgodyou'rehalfnaked!"

"Ah, yeah." He looked down at his bare chest with a grimace, and rubbed his hands down over his abdomen as if the motion might make a shirt magically appear. "I told you that I was not dressed for an outdoor reveal."

"I would say not! Aren't you freezing? Here," she said, yanking a throw blanket from her sofa and trying not to ogle his totally ogle-worthy body, "wrap this around yoursel—ohmygodyou'reAdrien!"

"I am, yes," he said, laughing. "It's—it's a good thing that it took you that long to get to my face, right?"

Marinette covered her burning face with her hands. "Oh god, kill me now."

"That seems rather extreme," he chuckled, he green eyes crinkling at the corners. "Is it so bad that it's me?"

"No!" Her head snapped up. "Nononono, of course not! I just—I was ogling you and you saw me ogling you and oh god we were kissing earlier and you're Adrien and I'm so sorry, I feel so ridiculous—"

"Marinette!" he interjected, cutting off the flow of her words. Her mouth snapped shut, and she regarded him with big eyes. "It's still just me. Whether you call me Adrien or Chat Noir, I'm still me." He took her hands in his and stepped closer, forcing her to tip her head back in order to see his face. "I'm still your partner, still your friend, still in love with you…and I still want to kiss you."

Marinette blushed, but her wide-eyed expression relaxed into a smile. "Just my friend?" she teased, closing the remaining distance between them and tilting her face up to his.

"If that's what you want," he returned. He lowered his head and brushed his lips over hers. "I'll be more if you let me."

"Yes," she breathed, sighing into the kiss as she looped her arms around his neck and thoroughly appreciating the feel of his bare shoulders beneath her arms. "I love you too, you know."

"Mmm," he hummed against her mouth. "I do know, my lady. And I think that might be the best gift of all."


End file.
